On conventional sausage making machines, meat emulsion is extruded through and out of a stuffing tube into a shirred casing that is mounted on the exterior of the tube. While the shirred casing is perhaps only 16 inches in length, it is capable of encasing a strand of sausage perhaps 100 feet or so long.
When the casing is substantially filled with sausage, and the rearward end of the casing approaches the discharge end of the tube, the meat pump and the machine need to be stopped in a timely manner so as not to extrude meat emulsion after the shirred casing is fully removed from the outside of the stuffing tube.
In addition, if sausage specification changes are made between the filling of one casing and another, care must be exercised that the machine can adapt to create an appropriate tail length of casing under the new conditions.
Conventional machines are not well adapted to accommodate either of the foregoing problems.
It is therefore a principal object of this invention to provide an automatic control for terminating the filling of a sausage casing, and the method of use thereof, where the meat emulsion pump can be timely shut off as the rearward end of the casing approaches the discharge end of the tube, and that the entire machine be shut down as the end of the filled casing "coasts" to the discharge end of the looper horn.
Specifically, a further object of this invention is to permit automatic adjustment of such time by a computer without the need for immediate operator adjustment of the components of the machine.
These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.